name and great celebrity, who have taken more or less pains in transmitting to posterity some memorials of the Jews and their affairs.

Tacitus, who lived at a time when the Jewish name and nation was either odious or utterly despised at Rome, after the final overthrow of Jerusalem, has left to us, in the fifth book of his Histories, a short account of the origin and customs of the Jews; defective indeed and distorted, as rather through prejudice than ignorance. He relates the expedition of Pompey against Jerusalem; and probably in the latter part of that book, which unhappily has perished, had given a fuller detail of the part which the Romans took in the concerns of Judæa, from the commencement of Augustus' reign till the destruction of the Holy City by Titus.

Plutarch, who flourished about thirty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, has incidental notices of the Jews and their affairs.

Appian, about twenty or twenty-five years later, composed, among other works, a History of Syria: in which he relates the transactions of Antiochus the Great and his successors on the Syrian throne; likewise the deeds of Pompey in Judæa, and his putting an end to the dynasty of the Seleucidæ.

Athenæus is said to have written a history of Syria; but not a vestige of it is now remaining. He flourished at the close of the second century after Christ.

Besides the above named, Dion Cassius and some other authors are known to have touched

more or less on points of Jewish history; but from none of them have we obtained, or at least do we now possess, any thing like a continuous or comprehensive work upon the subject.

It is manifest that all these united, interesting as they certainly are, and affording valuable confirmation of accounts derived from another quarter, are very far from supplying us with any thing like a complete history of the times, or furnishing that accurate or continuous information concerning the Jews and their transactions during this period, which we should greatly have desired to possess.

We turn therefore, not more naturally than necessarily, to the Jewish historians themselves; and enquire what amount of information we can gather thence, checked, and (if need be) corrected, by the concurrent testimonies of the writers of other nations. I say checked and corrected: for it is remembered that for all this portion of Jewish history we lack the infallible direction of inspired guides. The historical books of the Holy Scripture reach no lower in point of time than to Nehemiah (B. C. 434.): and from the Prophets who lived after the captivity, Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi, we gather little or nothing of historical relation; and even Malachi, the last of these, wrote at a period nearly four hundred years antecedent to the birth of Christ.

We are dependant therefore upon such accounts as are transmitted to us by Josephus, who lived and wrote subsequently to the destruction of Je

b

rusalem by Titus; and by certain other writers, whose relations, less known than his, or, at least, less studied, though some of them are prior in point of time, and perhaps superior in accuracy on many points, are here collected and exhibited in attempted order, as separate yet not useless links of a much to be desired chain.

Although the entire five treatises bear the same name, that of " Books of Maccabees," it is to be borne in mind that this connection between them is more nominal than real. Composed, perhaps at different times, by different authors, in different languages, on different subjects, they may derive importance and usefulness from juxta-position and a common name: but at the same time it is necessary that the reader should be furnished with a separate account of each; more especially, since I have felt it right to invert the order of some of them which are more familiar to common readers, with the view of making a chronological arrangement subservient to the purposes of general information.

BOOK I.

The first book, commonly known as the third, contains the history of not more than eight or nine years. It opens with the battle of Raphia, which was fought between Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, and Ptolemy Philopator, king of Egypt; in the third year of the 140th Olympiad,-of Rome 537, of the Seleucidæ 96,-before Christ 217. The principal event recorded in it is the attempted punishment and extraordinary deliverance of the

Jews at Alexandria. This transaction, as we learn from chap. ii. took place during the highpriesthood of Simon, son of Onias, who succeeded to that office in the year B. C. 211.

This book in time is prior to both the second and the third, and in authority is considered superior to the latter: although Philostorgius, a writer of the fourth century, declares it "mon"strous" and full of improbabilities. Its author is unknown: he is supposed to have been a Jew of Alexandria; indeed some, as Franciscus Junius, attribute both this and the Book of Wisdom to Philo: and the work is thought by Dr. Allix ("Judgment of the Jewish Church”) to have been written during the reign of Ptolemy Philopator, or a little after the Book of Ecclesiasticus, about two hundred years before Christ.

The Greek text is considered to be the Original. There is a Syriac version of it, to be seen in the Polyglott Bibles of Paris and London, and a literal Latin from this Syriac is given in the Bible of P. de la Haye. There is no ancient Latin; but a modern one, by Nobilius, is in the Polyglotts. Calmet observes, that the Latins, so far as he knew, had never quoted this book: nor does it appear in their earlier printed Bibles; the first edition in which he had found it was one printed by Froben, of the year 1538. The book also appears in the German Bibles, in a version made by Jo.

a Mr. Milman, in his History of the Jews, flippantly calls the Third (First) Book a "romantic story," and "a 'legend." But ancient writers

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of sound learning speak of it with respect and Grotius disdained not to comment on it, as well as on the other two books.

Circemberger, first printed at Wittemburg in 1554. It was translated into French by Calmet, and is found in the third volume of his "Literal Commentary on the Bible."

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Although it was reckoned Canonical by some of the Fathers, and is contained in most manuscripts of the Septuagint; yet, as it never found its way into the Vulgate translation, nor was received by the western church, our authorized English Bibles have not usually contained it. Yet an English version of it was put forth by Walter Lynne, in a small volume, in 1550; which in the next year, with some few alterations, and many corrections of the spelling, was appended to a folio Bible printed by John Daye. About 170 years afterwards, a new translation of it was published by Whiston, in his "Authentic Documents," 2 vols. 8vo. 1719 and 1727. And a third version, made by Clement Crutwell, was added to his edition of the Bible with bishop Wilson's notes, 3 vols. 4to. Bath, 1785. Having compared each of these with the Greek text, I think Whiston's version to be the most faithful of the three; but have not at all considered myself as bound to retain it, wherever an examination of the Original suggested an alteration as advisable.

b Lynne dedicates his book to lady Anne, duchess of Somerset and assigns as his reason for the publication, that the work was often quoted in the Table, or Concordance, compiled by Bullinger and others of the church of Zu

rich, which he had translated, and was publishing in the same volume; and that it was to be found in no English Bible except one which John Daye was then printing. This edition of Lynne was reprinted in 12mo, in 1563.